Thanks for sharing your frustration. Thanks for your donation, and I encourage you to continue. Donations are what fuels new development, and also the resources to revisit and correct/enhance reported issues. Without the kind support of persons such as yourself, development/maintenance suffers. I agree that SuperNova has had many ups and downs, but what we have is a new code base for a better long-term experience.

Many complaints have surfaced on screenspace in the classic view and I believe some of those are being addressed. My suggestion for now is to try the vertical layout, as that lets you click any message and read and reply without opening new message when through with current message. You mentioned wanting larger font for printing. Did you mean viewing on screen? If so, let me know and I can give you the instructions on how to set viewable font size of messages to whatever you prefer. And, thank you for your understanding of our volunteer role.

David, You are a gem and I'm always glad to hear from you. So to clarify a few questions you asked. My outgoing emails are fine as far as size of type. It is the incoming emails that I have trouble reading. The type is so small that I have to use Cntl + over and over again to get the type large enough for me to see. And now Cntl + is not working. So if you can tell me how to actually get the incoming font size larger that will help a lot.

I did not know that there is a vertical format and it sounds better than the current layout. How do I change to that?

In trying out the various email programs on my computer, I landed on Betterbird and was fairly pleased with it until they decided that the user didn't need to see the sender's heading when you opened an email. Want to know a reason why you need to see the sender's header? I get barraged with political emails. One of the things various PACs and campaigns do is completely misuse the header. And you don't see all of the abuses in the unopened email. You must open the email in order to see their full abuse of email standards. I respond to these emails telling them what they're doing is an abuse. As I understand it, this new supernova is doing the same thing - bad idea.

Ok, final problem. I use Local Folders a lot. How can I link the local folders from Betterbird to my 115 local folders? So far, I have not been able to find the local folders in my file cabinet.

Bless you, David you are a shining light.

Thanks for your kind words. (I wish my wife could see this. Sometimes I'm in the dog house...) Anyway, the vertical view is at View>Layout>vertical view. If you don't have menu bar active, press the Alt key and then it should appear. Or press the hamburger menu (three lines) in upper right and select View. You may need to drag the separator lines between folder pane and message list panes for your optimal viewing. I like this view because I can click down the message list pane and the accompanying message appears to the right.

For font size, there are a few steps: - click settings>general and click the advanced button on font section. There, click the minimum font size to what you think is desirable. My suggestion is to set higher than you think is needed. I suggest 22 for a start. If too big, you can always reset it. I also suggest changing all the font size options that are visible there to that size for consistency. Then, look at top of that pane. It probably shows 'latin'. Click it and then select 'Other writing systems' and repeat EXACTLY on than pane the settings you did on the Latin pane. Exactly. I included two screenshots to demonstrate. My setting is 14, but you need a higher number. Now, click OK.

Next, click settings>composition and verify that the HTML font is 'Variable width' and 'Medium'. This guarantees that, no matter how big you have the font for your viewing, that message you send do NOT include font size, as that allows recipient to set font size as they prefer.

The Betterbird question is easy, but I may need more info. If you used Betterbird with a different profile, you need to copy from that profile to the Thunderbird profile. My inference is you created some local folders in Betterbird that you want to save. Right? Is Betterbird still installed? Let me know and we can take it from there.

Ok, sad news. I clicked the hamburger pane/View/Layout/Vertical View and Vertical View was already selected. I tried Classic View and Wide View and didn't see any real difference, so I went back to Vertical View.( I did however move the menu bar permanently above the window. I know that will make things a lot easier. I did get the font fixed. Thank you.

Another critique of the design. It's very hard to find the tabs of the various options (Address Book, Settings, etc.,) when the bar that holds these items also hold tabs for the various messages are also up there. I have found that by right-clicking on the tab I can close the tab, but why does it have to be up there? In giving people "options" (that they don't know they have or need, they make the whole thing more complicated than it has to be.

Ok, ask the questions you need to ask about Betterbird. I still have Betterbird active. There's a button to click to find the Local Files, but what it comes up with makes no sense.

Hopefully we'll finally get this all settled.

The tab bar doesn't appear unless something is open. By having a tab for each open item, a user can easily switch between the two. Works for some, not for all. To capture your local folder items and move to thunderbird requires use of windows file explorer. If you're comfortable working within the file explorer, the steps are simple: - locate the Mail\Local Folders folder in the Betterbird profile and copy the paired items (such as filename and filename.msf) to the Mail\Local Folders folder in the Thunderbird profile. If not sure where they are, the way to do that (in both Betterbird and Thunderbird) is to click help>troubleshootinginformation, scroll down to 'profile folder', click 'open profile' and then note the name of the folder so you could find it again. Do that first for Betterbird, click the Mail and LocalFolders folder and copy the desired pairs to a separate folder. Then, repeat the process for Thunderbird and when you open its profile folder, exit Thunderbird and then copy the previously copied pairs to the Mail\Local Folders folder and restart thunderbird.

David, I'm printing out all your notes. I'm calling it a day. Tomorrow I will reread all your posts and check over everything I've done. Then I'll tackle the Local Folders. and I'll write back how I'm doing. Hopefully, I'll figure it out.

Thanks for all your help. Tell your wife I said you're a gem. Write to you tomorrow. :-D

OK, I'm back with a lot of 4 printscreens of the Local Folder. The actual link that Betterbird gave me is /home/barbaradj/.thunderbird/yhb3oj6n.default-default/Mail/Local Folders. The individual files mean nothing to me, but you may be able to tell me what to do about them. I'm sorry that it took me so long, but with complications of the holidays, I got kind of overloaded. If we can nail this, it will be great. My one remaining issue is transferring my email accounts. I transferred all my email addresses to a docx file, but they're also still in Betterbird.

Thanks to your last post, I have found my working method. Now that I know that that there is a tab opened when I open an email, I just close the tab. This way I'm not automatically passed on to the next message(which is often spam) and I like to handle my spam from the list of emails. There is one problem, alas, that that is the spam button is not working. In Betterbird when I clicked on the spam button, it sent the email to the spam folder. In my copy of Thunderbird 115, the spam button is not working, except the change from dark to light and vice versa. But that is a very minor problem.

Okay, here is the easiest way to do that. - start thunderbird - be sure that Betterbird is NOT running - click tools>import>import from another thunderbird installation - if not displayed, click 'import from another profile folder' - select the betterbird profile.

This is the result Betterbird gave me

/home/barbaradj/.thunderbird/yhb3oj6n.default-default/Mail/Local Folders

The three choices are: import from other thunderbird Import from Sea Monkey - not installed on my computer import from file - how? When I choose import from other thunderbird, 115 gives me: home/barbaradj/thunderbird/cnuul1wf.default, which is not the same as the betterbird location and it makes all the files from betterbird invisible. What's next. So close and yet so far

Isn't one of the options to select 'choose a profile folder'?

Yes, but it doesn't work. 2 screens below I tried going through the sequence. but on step 3 it wouldn't budge to look for an the Betterbird file address. In the pictures you'll see the choices I took. The first page gives me the Choice of another version of Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and a zip file. I chose another Thunderbird version. When I got to step 2 It allowed me to use the Thunderbird address, another profile folder or a zip file. I tried using the Thunderbird address, but it blocked out the Betterbird folders. I tried using another profile folder, but that choice lockedup. I couldn't go back and I couldn't go to page 3.

Hopefully there's another way

I am at a loss on why your PC locks up, as I have no difficulty. Okay, another option, using windows file explorer is to copy the betterbird profile to the c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles folder. Then start thunderbird, click help>troubleshootinginformation, scroll down to profiles and click 'about:profile' and then select the profile to use.

Thanks for sticking with me , David. At this point I think I have a bigger problem. Your suggestion about switching the folders to c:\users sent me to my file cabinet(Linux version of Windows Explorer). Everything seems to be messed up there. Usually when I open the file cabinet it leads with Home/Barbaradj/. Now it doesn't and I can't find the Betterbird string of folders that you suggested I transfer to a new folder. I love my switch to Linux. One of the best things about it is increased privacy because the number Linux computers compared to Windows and Mac is so small that it isn't worth it for hackers to learn its intricacies. But I see that something is wrong because it's not working quite as it should. It's time for me to contact the computer's manufacturer to see if they can help me straigten this out.

I want to see what I can do manually. I can manually add my addresses to Thunderbird, I hope. Is there anything else I have to transfer to Thunderbird from Betterbird - and can I do it manually. I do have a docx of my email addresses.

So if you can just advise me what I can do manually, I will put this thread on the shelf, leaving it open just so I can let you know how everything turns out with my computer maker.

Thank you for everything, David

David, I'm back. Couldn't stop fiddling around. The sequence Betterbird had given me for the settings was "home/barbaradj/.thunderbird/yhb3oj6n.default-default/Mail/Local Folders"

From a different way - don't ask me how, I found the Mail folder within which was Local Folders. I've copied the Mail Folder in a new folder. Is that enough for me to work with? This image shows the folders within Mail. ( The "pop.ipower" folders relate to a website I designed for someone, so I don't think I have to transfer those. )

Well, I don't know what is in Local Folders, but whatever is there can be safely copied to another computer. For the addressbook (abook.sqlite), it should be at home/barbaradj/.thunderbird/yhb3oj6n.default-default Another way to copy addresses to eliminate need to rekey would be to click to addressbook pane, highlight the desired addressbook, click the three dots to the right of its name and export as csv file that can be imported to another Thunderbird addressbook.

Thanks, David

Going to save this for tomorrow. I'll let you know how it turns out (crossed fingers). If it works, it will be enough to make me happy. I'll be able to delete betterbird.

David, Happy New Year Hope everything goes well for everyone this year.

I have reached a point of satisfaction with the state of my Thunderbird 115. No I have not been able to add my address book automatically, but that's ok. I have my email list and I've found out how to add the addresses manually. As to the Local folders - all the things I collected in there were newsletters I subscribed to. I can get the past issues from substack any time I want to. I do have the folders laid out as I want them, and hew newsletters arrive in my inbox I well set up the automatic move from my inbox to Local folders.

There are only 2 problems that I cannot fix - and I assume you cannot either.

Despite changing the font size in the account settings, the incoming print has not increased. But my work around is to hit reply(whether I plan to reply or not). When the incoming email opens up as a reply, the email's content is legible. If I'm not replying, the all I have to do is not send it.

The other thing surprised me. The junk mark shows up next to emails marked spam, but pressing the spam button does not send the email to spam. Nor does The "junk" option that appears with other options when you open an email.

The other thing I have noticed - which is not your problem - the marks that used to appear at the top right corner of Firefox are gone - and I wonder why? It was the best tool to manage screens and, without it, dealing with multiple screens is convoluted to say the least.

It seems to me that Mozilla has two sets of users. Long-time users, like me, that have gotten used to a set of operating standards that have served us well. The second set of users who are younger and connected to any number of digital outlets and whose minds have been conditioned to jump from one outlet to another and want tools that serve their needs. The problem is that the two groups are not really compatible and trying to design one email program for both groups results in the kind of experience I've had with email.

I am going to donate to Thunderbird development but I'm also going to give them feedback, especially on the idea of serving different sets of users.

Thank you for all your help. I will say it again - you are a gem.

I'm pleased all is going well. Please review earlier posts on this thread, as font size was earlier reported fixed. The solution I provided has proved solid, so please revisit those steps for setting the font size.

David, I will recheck those things you mentioned so see if I can get the font size working. And I'm going to mark this thread solved. Thanks for all your help, you are a calm influence which made me feel less crazy as I was working on this. And I can close all the Linux email apps I still have active in case nothing else worked. All that spam coming into 4 or 5 programs (not counting Thunderbird!). I turn you loose to help all the other Thunderbird outcasts. :-D

Thank you for your kind words. Do enjoy life. It has been my pleasure to assist. And I am marking my participation closed as well. 2024 is ahead for us all to screw up, make mistakes, and maybe have fun.